でいる

[eeky]

Hi, I had a でいる once before that confused me. Here's another one:

留守中いい子でいるんですよ。


Is で a particle here? Is いい子で adverbial (as I think we eventually concluded the earlier example was)? Or is でいる some kind of inflection of the copula or verbal fusion of copula and いる?

 

[Toritoribe]

I think it's adverbial, too. ～ている form originally from ～て、いる (became to be a state, and is staying in the state), so the uses/meanings are overlapping, though..

 

[raguna]

で in this context is a particle as far as I understand, the combination seems to be adverbial. Other than the example you posted, I think it is most common in "as long as I am" sentences. Like人間でいる限り、諦めません。or 社長でいながらそんなことは許しません。

 

[Glenn]

Is it OK to think of it as a sometimes-used animate version of である (だ)? I've kind of always thought of it that way.

 

[Toritoribe]

Hmm, I don't think so, since いい子でいる is future tense in the example sentence. If it's 留守中いい子でいた（＝だった） or 今はいい子でいる（＝だ）, it can be said so.

 

[Glenn]

Does that mean that である can't be used for future or that でいる can't? Or is there some other option I'm not getting here?

 

[Toritoribe]

"Future tense" might not be appropreate. いる expresses the concept of the verb in the example sentence, not an actual state/action.
Unlike ～である/だ which shows the (current) state, いる focuses more on the function as a verb "to stay" there. In fact, 留守中いい子であるんですよ can't be used instead, whereas 留守中いい子であった and 今いい子である can be used to express the past and currect state, respectively.

 

[Glenn]

So いい子でいる is more like "to be (in the state of being) a good child", and therefore more instantaneous/specific than the more general いい子である, right? In other words, いい子でいる would only ever point to an instance of a child being good (well-behaved, etc.), whereas いい子である would be more about the general characteristics of that particular child being good (well-behaved, etc.) in general, or under usual circumstances. In other other words (I just kind of made that up), いい子でいる = "a good, well-behaved child in this instance/right now", vs. いい子である = "a good child most of the time (anyone would think this child is a good child no matter how they're acting right now)". I hope that's not too convoluted. At any rate (assuming it isn't), is that a fair assessment of the difference between the two?

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, that's the general difference between the two expressions. Furthermore, the example sentence has a nuance something like 留守中いい子で家に/ここにいるんですよ, probably because of the word 留守中. This expression is often used by mother to her child when she goes out not so long time. I wanted to say this by "the concept of the verb" in my previous post.

 

[Yzlot]

Isn't いい子でいる closer to "he/she, having the makings of a good child, was good"
And いい子である closer to "he/she, has shown me(us) that he was a good child, and was good."?

I've never really payed much attention to it, but that's how I feel the meanings differ. I mainly get a feeling of differing objective(である) and subjective(でいる) meanngs between the two.